As I was working in my veggie garden today it  crossed my mind that

weeding generates a fertile mind. ideas spring forth.

it’s frosty here and I would love to knit a hot pink helmet

also, a version of this pullover worn by Jane Birkin, seen here in the 60’s clutching her signature basket which inspired Hermès to make the legendary Birkin Bag so that she could grow up and be a proper lady with a handbag.

Being my mothers daughter (leave a little to the imagination, dear) I have no intention of being naked under my Birkin style jumper. I thought I’d wear it more like this one, seen on another style icon, Françoise Gilot, former wife of Picasso. Habu fine merino for the gossamer effect  and wool stainless steel for structure, would do the trick, I think?

Françoise again, here in the famous Robert Capa pic wearing the dress I have always longed for. For those of us with less than perfect legs, when, oh when, will ankle length return?

We can blame the short skirt on the fabulous Jean Shrimpton (also wearing the pink helmet above), first real supermodel. Here she is in her accidental mini, causing a sensation with her bare legs at the Melbourne races in 1965.

We may not have to wait too much longer for the maxi. I spotted a khaki version of this Comme Des Garçons skirt on the sale rack at Barneys, alas not in my size. Where Commes go, others follow……

Here I am in New York, after a stop in Los Angeles, where I explored yarn shops (of course). Visiting Wildfiber is like going back to my childhood home, with one exception: it is as big as I remembered, with lots of space to sit and knit, which I did last Wednesday night in the company of some old friends I’d not seen in three years. It was a lovely way to begin my trip to the USA.

The next stop on my shop tour was Knitter’s Studio, on 3rd Street in West Hollywood, followed by Twist, in Manhattan Beach. Both are charming, with beautiful selections of natural fibres. Cathy Karen, of Twist, has her very own selection of beautiful yarns she dyes herself.

Now that I’m in New York, having spilled a glass of tomato juice all over my lap during the flight and arriving without my luggage which took another 24 hours to show up  – amazing how helpful a little shampoo and a hairdryer in a hotel bathroom can be when you have no other options and you’re late for dinner – I’m excited that Abigail, a new cardigan I designed for The Knitter magazine, is on the cover of Issue 20, out this week.

Abigail is inspired by the blouses of the 1950’s and 60’s which I love. Think Betsy of Mad Men, and a pair of slim pants or a full skirt.. It could also be lovely worn open, over a dress.  I gave it a tailored, Peter Pan collar which I’d wanted to try for some time.  I’m excited at the way it turned out!

It’s very fun to knit (one piece to the armholes) with no dreaded button band to pick up or attach later. It’s all done as you go. One of my favourite details is the touch of eyelet gathering on the sleeves and pockets.

Sizes are 81cm(32″) to 117cm(46″) chest. The yarn is Debbie Bliss Eco Baby.

Now I’m off to explore New York with India. We’ve heard there’s a new knitting shop in Brooklyn that has a liquor license!  Now that’s a new angle.

But before I go I have to mention String, on East 65th St. It’s a lovely shop, airy and light, located upstairs in an old brownstone. Linda Morse, the owner, imports cashmere  and has it dyed by  Koigu in some of their Kpppm colours.

This an easy hat pattern, but sometimes such a thing is hard to find.

I made it for my son, Pete, who is very particular in his taste. Like most knitters I fear that my efforts will end up on the rag pile, so on one of his visits home I asked him for specific instructions on just exactly what sort of hat he would like to wear.

The result was two versions, one in butterscotch, a gorgeous golden shade of chunky, soft Blue Sky Worsted (worn by Polly, above), the other in an evergreen shade of Koigu Kersti, a classic dk. They both have long bands of ribbing that can be folded back watch cap style.

The circumference of both hats is 33cm[13"] in 2/2 rib unstretched and will fit a medium-large head 48-56cm [19-22"]

Here are the instructions.

POLLY’S HAT:

Materials

Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand Dyes; 1 skein  2022-butterscotch

Size 5mm [US8]  40cm circular needles

Size 5.5mm double pointed needles (DPNs)

tapestry needle

stitch marker

Cast on 72 sts on smaller needle. Join in round, taking care not to twist. Place marker.

Work K2, P2 rib for 16cm.

Change to DPNs and work 9cm in stst (all rounds knit).

Begin decreases:

Round 1: *K6, k2tog; repeat from * to end. –63 sts.

Rnd 2 and all even rounds: Knit

Rnd 3: *K5, k2tog; rep from * to end. –54 sts.

Rnd 5: *K4, k2tog; rep from * to end. –45 sts.

Rnd 7:*K3, k2tog; rep from * to end. –36 sts.

Rnd 9: *K2, k2tog; rep from * to end. –27sts.

Rnd 11: *K1, k2tog; rep from * to end. –18 sts.

Rnd 13: *K2tog; rep from * to end. –9 sts.

Break yarn and thread through remaining stitches. Pull tight and with tapestry needle, weave in ends on WS of hat.

PETE’S HAT

Worn above, with the ribbing folded back twice.

Koigu Kersti; 1 skein shade K1510

Size 3.75mm [US5]  40cm circular needles

Size 4mm[US6] double pointed needles

tapestry needle

stitch marker

Cast on 104 sts on smaller needle. Join in round, taking care not to twist. Place marker.

Work K2, P2 rib for 16cm.

Change to DPNs and work 9cm in stst (all rounds knit).

Begin decreases:

Round 1: *K6, k2tog; repeat from * to end. –91sts.

Rnd 2 and all even rounds: Knit

Rnd 3: *K5, k2tog; rep from * to end. –78 sts.

Rnd 5: *K4, k2tog; rep from * to end. –65 sts.

Rnd 7:*K3, k2tog; rep from * to end. –52 sts.

Rnd 9: *K2, k2tog; rep from * to end. –39 sts.

Rnd 11: *K1, k2tog; rep from * to end. –26 sts.

Rnd 13: *K2tog; rep from * to end.–13 sts.

Break yarn and thread through remaining stitches.  Pull tight and with tapestry needle weave in ends on WS of hat.

Tomorrow I leave on my trip to TNNA in Ohio and then New York. Shipping for South Seas Knitting will continue while I’m away. In the meantime, happy knitting!

Thank you for your comments on my 80’s knit parade last week. I really appreciate it. I did not mean to apologize for the 80’s. I have very fond memories of that decade: I arrived in the USA, my children were young, small enough to willingly wear anything I knitted them and sit on the back of my bicycle, I was young and because of that, could wear shoulder padded jumpsuits and not look silly. I also wore apple green-and-hot-pink cowboy boots, Native American Seminole skirts cinched at the waist with a silver belt, and my ears dripped with turquoise. It was an exciting time in fashion.

For a moment, the 90’s will have to wait. They’ve been interrupted by this news flash from my friends at Koigu: Maie Landra’s latest design, this stunning dress.

I’m absolutely wowed by it. Doesn’t it look like something Maid Marian might wear in Sherwood Forest? When I look at it I see many influences:  the Renaissance, 1970’s caftan, art deco, and most important, a future when we will all be wearing comfortable ankle length hand knits that hide a multitude of sins and are also elegant and fashionable. What do you see?

Evidently a simpler version of this will be appearing in Vogue Knitting Fall 2010. For fans of Koigu Kersti, the lovely model is none other than the little girl the yarn was named after, quite grown up now.

Yes, it really is autumn.

I say this with emphasis because my family in the northern hemisphere are always incredulous when I mention it. I remind them of the teacher in grade school with a tennis ball (earth) circling a soccer ball (sun), tilted and spinning as it goes, exposing one half of our planet to more sun than the other half for half of the year. Phew. Hold on while I try that with balls of wool to see if I understand it myself.

On my morning walks I’m reminded of the ephemeral nature of autumn colours. How quickly the chartreuse, yellow and red fade to a dull dry brown.

I want to capture them in my knitting.

There’s a new Rowan yarn that’s inspiring me. It’s made from used garments and it’s called Revive. The fibres are collected according to their silk, cotton and viscose content, carded and spun into yarn, so it’s 100% recycled. The word that comes to mind is scrumptious, like the home made granola bars from my local cafe. Sweet, satisfying and guilt free.

Revive lends itself beautifully to lace. Here it is in Trellis Leaf pattern from  Barbara Walker’s A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. It’s going to be my between season scarf.

It’s also handsome in good old stockinette stitch.

I want to make this tunic top, named Parsnip!  I love the neck button and subtle gathering on the three quarter length sleeves. Doesn’t it look like just the thing for picking fruit from the pear tree?

Parsnip can be found in this booklet: Purelife Recycled Collection, beautifully styled and lusciously presented as is the Rowan way. All the patterns are designed by one of my favourites, Marie Wallin. Here are a few. I’ll pretend not to notice if you drool.

It’s not all melancholy here. Amongst the autumn pile there’s always a hibiscus or two, reminding us that tropical islands are not far away.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

Polonius, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

and so said my father, often, ‘tho no scholar of Shakespeare he.

After he and Daphne finally paid off their modest mortgage he revised it to “there’s no better feeling than waking up in the morning knowing you don’t owe anything to anyone.”

That was the old way, to save up for something  you wanted or put it on lay-by until you’d paid it off.

As a teenager I used to buy my yarn ball by ball on layaway at the wool shop in town. You had three months to pick it up. It meant that I could afford to knit with lovely quality wool and I learned to finish my projects in a timely fashion! Thank you, Ballantynes of Christchurch.

In case anyone wants to take advantage of it, (some have already, even a customer in the USA) I instituted this policy on South Seas Knitting. You can pay as you knit.

Knitting needles are like books when it comes to borrowing and lending. Best not to. A few months ago I started making a list of needles I’d lent to friends, but the problem with a list is that I forget where I wrote it.
A set of long, thin metal circulars were missing last week, just when I needed them for a crucial stage in the finishing of my new cardigan. I’d lent them out and taken note . . . . . . somewhere. Thankfully, the borrower remembered.
They arrived back shortly thereafter, accompanied by these lovely yellow roses.

If you’d like to make a doily for your vase of flowers, there’s no better book than Mary Thomas’s Book of Knitting Patterns. She covers doilies of all shapes, plain and lace. You can make them in any yarn, on any size needle, and the possibilities for expressing your creativity are endless. Best of all, you can use bits and bobs from your stash.
My doily is made with hemp, on 4mm needles.

The men in my life are very specific about what they will and won’t wear.

To give him credit, Pete willingly wore all kinds of dubious hand made items until peer pressure kicked in and he became master of his own fashion decisions. On the  first day of kindergarten he set off for school wearing a pair of home made Jams, about to find out the hard way that store bought is cooler. Gone were the days of his Mum deciding what he would wear. No more corduroy knickerbockers for him.

Just one year old, my little nephew Lucas is still delightfully lacking opinions about his own clothes, a stage that won’t last long. What to make, then, to celebrate his first birthday? A little fishermans’ vest with pockets for his favourite things.

I attribute my fondness for vests to my Dad’s love of clothes and his signature look, which was something like this: a tweed suit and vest.  Timeless. He didn’t have much money and the same suit probably lasted him for twenty years, but he always looked well dressed , never old fashioned.

Here are some vests from the various eras my Dad lived through. Vest and cigarettes were inseparable, it would seem.

The cardigan….

the classic v-neck….

and the argyle…

You could say that Jimmy Page brought them back in the 70’s. I became a fan of the Yardbirds because of this vest. Worn tight and short over a full sleeve shirt, it was classic rock star chic. I wonder if Jimmy’s Mum was a knitter?

Here’s a very 80’s vest from a book of knitting patterns with Australian motifs. A good Aussie bloke loves his Mum, and will wear anything she makes him, it seems.

Will these neck lines ever stage a comeback?

Now, if you’re in the mood for a little retro style and your man won’t object, here are some of my favourites.

A classic Fair Isle by Alice Starmore, in her book The Celtic Collection

A stunning argyle in Knitting For Him, by Martin Strory and Wendy Baker

and in the same book, a chic Fair Isle cardigan.

Who could resist a man in one of these? Whether he’s a metrosexual or the old fashioned macho type, there’s something for everyone in vest style.

For Lucas’s vest I used Koigu Kersti. It would be handsome in Cascade 220 or any dk wool. The pattern will be available just as soon as I’ve written it in some larger sizes.

Isn’t is satisfying to make things for your house? You get to enjoy the making, the using, and  you have a daily reminder of all those hours you lovingly stitched something that you’ll have forever.

It used to be my ambition to have a completely home made house.  Not being much good with hammer and nail I’ve scaled that down to having a home made item in each room. At this point I might have reached my goal but that won’t stop me because I’m addicted to making things.

Here are some non-knitted things I made for my garden in Santa Monica. I left them there for the new owner (a twinge of regret permeates these words as I type) and on visits, I walk past it and see those little bits if myself that are still there no matter who the owner is.

These pots were made following an inspirational few days in Barcelona (the plates were already broken – I just couldn’t bear to part with them). My Antonio Gaudi phase.

Pebble pattern on my bedroom patio, surrounded by gardenias. Mmmmm.

Perhaps it’s because the hot summer days disappeared all of a sudden last week, the days shortened and it’s altogether an autumn-ish feeling around here, that I embarked on making my own little bit of sunshine to cover the dull grey tiles in the bathroom.

I’ve always loved rag or hooked rugs and have had it in mind for a long time to make a knitted version. The moment arrived (funny how something that’s been brewing for years decides, for no particular reason, to slide itself onto your knitting needles) so I spent my evenings this week making this colourful  folk art-ish mat while watching episodes of Midsomer Murders, the irresistible modern day Hercule Poirot-style mystery set in an ultra picturesque English village brimming with dozens of typically eccentric characters, and this delicious documentary about Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton. Now that’s what I call living!

Please don’t hate me for owning a large stash of the scrumptious, soft Blue Sky Cotton, left over from various projects.  I just can’t stop using this yarn, as much for its softness as its gorgeous colour palette.

For extra sumptuousness I used double strands throughout.

My mat weighs 550g, so you’d need that much yarn to make one the same size. I used seven colours (700g) but you could make up your own colour scheme, perhaps using only 2 or 3 colours.

Here are some  more subdued (but no less beautiful) combinations I’m considering for my next mat.

81-sand & 604-aloe

80-bone & 81-sand

and now, to Mel’s helpful hint of the week, told to me by a Los Angeles gent who seemed to be an expert in these matters:

If you’re trying to sell your house, instead of stashing towels or keeping them in a cupboard, roll a few and put them on display. It gives the visitor (or potential buyer) a feeling that they’ll always be on vacation or at a spa if they buy your house!

P.S. I like the idea of making this mat much bigger with leftover wool and felting it. It would be beautiful in a child’s room or as a hearth rug.

The recipe  for my Folk-ish Mat is over in the free pattern menu.

I’ve been busy re-working that project I took apart last week and have learned two things in the course of an intensive week of knitting:

1. that I’m developing “knitter’s bottom”

2. a way to work wraps on the purl side so that they’re invisible….. more on this next week

In the meantime, my first design for the UK magazine “The Knitter” is coming out this week, in Issue 16.

The Knitter is published monthly and is intended for knitters who like a challenge, although many of the projects are suitable for beginners, too.

I subscribed here and it’s it’s also available at book stores.

I wanted Guinevere’s Gloves to be playful but wearable and used my beloved Koigu KPM in three colours: natural (0), sage (2341), blueberry (2300) and tangerine (1193) .

I love KPM for it’s twist, softness, and above all, it’s range of colours. You can create something and feel like you’ve channeled Missoni’s muse. I even prefer it to KPPPM, its better known hand-painted sister. They’re the same yarn, I just happen to love playing with the semi solids rather than the multis.

I’m now making a pair in a new colourway.

While watching the dvd of Coco Before Chanel last night, I realized that I’d committed a knitting faux pas.

Don’t ask me why I was knitting while watching a movie featuring gorgeous costumes, Audrey Tatou, and subtitles. Let’s just say I have a deadline and I’d memorized the pattern.

My new cardigan, knit in one piece to the underarms, was coming along nicely.

Stopping to put the kettle on, I laid it on the coffee table to indulge in a moment of admiration and saw to my horror that I’d not centered the stitch pattern correctly. How I’d gotten almost to the armpits without seeing this is I do not know. I thought of  pretending it was deliberate, but I knew in my heart that it would turn into an “if-only-I’d-studied-for-the-chemistry-exam-my-life-would-be-different moment, so there was nothing to do but unravel it all.

It turns out that unravelling is more suitable than knitting for watching foreign movies!

So here sits the forlorn ball of cotton yarn with its crinkly memory reminding me to pay more attention in future.

A couple of readers have asked about the bag pattern from last week, so I’ve made this drawing (instructions below):

First, a disclaimer.

I’m not used to writing sewing instructions but I’ll give it a try:

1. cut two pieces of fabric to the measurements shown in the diagram, one for the lining and one for the outer. note the fold line.

2. pin the “darts” at the opening on the outer and the lining.

3. leaving a 10 cm gap at the top of each side, sew both side seams with Right Sides of the fabric facing each other on the inside. do this for the lining and outer.

4. placing the Right Side of the lining against the Right Side of the outer layer, pin along the 10cm opening on both side, and along the curve at top, leaving an 8cm opening on the curve. sew.

5. turn the bag out so that the lining lies inside the bag.

6. blind stitch the opening around the curve.

7. attach handles using cotton thread or some attractive yarn, perhaps left over from one of your crocheted squares.

There are many different shapes of handles and it’s necessary to tailor the top edge of the bag to suit your handle. if yours has a straight edge, make the top of the bag straight instead of curved.

and now to finished projects. Jenny Herd of Melbourne sent me some photos of this beautiful shawl she knit using Manos Silk Blend. The colour is 3109-woodland.

The shawl was knitted on 6mm needles and used 5 hanks of Silk Blend. The pattern you can find here at Knitty

Thank you, Jenny! It’s gorgeous!

Now, to start over with the cardi…….